Labor
by Nyxelestia
Summary: As insane as Jack was pregnant, she’s even worse in labor. Ben is still at her side, though, and Alex is still of no help at all. Sequel to ‘Pregnancy’, Part 3 of my Jack Daniels series. Rated for language.


**A/N:**** Merry Christmas! Thanks to l8rg8r123 for the girls' first names.**

* * *

_Beep beep beepbeep-beepbeep beep-beep beep-_

"Hello?" Alex said sleepily into the phone. Maybe he should've checked Caller ID.

"Alex!"

Ben sounded rather…relieved.

"St. Dominic's, now, please!"

Alex sat up bolt right up in his bed.

"What? Is everything all right?"

"YES!"

He sounded…delighted…which, considering he'd just asked Alex to the hospital, could only mean one thing.

"Jack's in labor?"

"Started just an hour ago."

"I'll be right down."

* * *

Alex walked into the hospital entrance briskly through the sliding doors, and walked straight up to reception, holding an ID card out for the receptionist – not that he'd need it.

"Hello, Jo," Alex said.

"Ah, Alex," she said. "Mrs. Daniels, I presume?"

Alex would _never _get used to Jack being 'Mrs. Daniels'.

"Yes."

"Birthing room is room 306A. Private ward, like always."

"Thanks, love," Alex said breathlessly as he practically ran to the elevators.

Reaching the room, Alex stepped in to the rather odd sight of labor.

Jack was in a hospital gown on the specialized bed, feet up in stirrups, but a blanket covering her for now, and she was covered in sweat, and looked miserable.

Ben was right by her side, away from the door, holding her hand, and wiping the sweat from her forehead.

"Alex!" she said, happily, reaching out her other hand to him, her grip unusually hard for the normally very gentle woman. "You're here…" That seemed all she was capable of saying.

Alex just nodded, squeezing lightly back. "How's it going?"

"Her water broke a few minutes after I called you," Ben answered for Jack. "And right now, she's dilated about three centimeters."

Alex frowned. "Er…maybe I'm just watching the wrong medical sitcoms, but with twins, wouldn't it be easier to just go for a C-section?"

Ben shook his head as Jack's eyes widened at that prospect.

"There's some issue with her uterine lining and excess amniotic fluids and stuff. A C-section would be…well, very bad. Dangerous to Jack."

"How bad?"

"Considering how it's normally such a common procedure, last resort bad."

Alex winced. "Okay, so, natural birth?"

Ben nodded. "So far, the twins seem to be positioned correctly."

Now the young spy breathed a sigh of relief. "This might just be an easy birth, after all."

"Easy for you to say," Jack growled. "_You_ aren't getting contractions and labor pains."

"Right," Alex said.

"You're doing great," Ben said softly, going back to stroking her head. "You'll be just fine."

"So long as you stay here," she said, pulling his hand closer to her. "This is all your fault, anyway."

Ben nodded, clearly not arguing with Jack, not today. "Right. My fault. I got you pregnant with twins, and I'm sorry."

"You don't sound like it," she said angrily, despite the fact she was still gripping onto Ben's hand like a lifeline. Because she was turned away, Alex openly grinned, barely smothering a laugh. Oh, Jack was so going to kill Alex for bringing this up, later.

"Jack," Ben said. "Let's argue about this later."

"Oh, no nonono no…" she said, gasping. "Now…now….noo-AAH!"

"Jack?!"

But now she was practically screaming, and Alex winced.

Though he would never voice this aloud, he was so bloody glad he wasn't a woman.

* * *

Two hours later found Alex sitting in a chair just outside Jack's room again, with a phone to his ear.

_"…Cub?"_

Wolf had finally picked up.

"Jack's in labor," Alex said.

_"What?! You're kidding, right?"_

Instead of responding, Alex turned up the reception volume, just like their usual fights, and tilted the mouthpiece of his phone outward, not having bothered with a Blue Tooth.

"…Jack-"

"BEN! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"I know, Jack, I-"

"AAH!"

"Jack, love, please, hold on, you're doing brilliant…"

"Take a deep breath, Mrs. Daniels-"

"_YOU_ TAKE A DEEP FUCKING BREATH! ALL YOU GODDAMN DOCTORS ARE EVIL, SADISTIC, HEARTLESS LITTLE….AH!"

Tuning her out, Alex brought the mouthpiece back his own lips and turned down the reception radius.

"No, I'm not," he said, calmly.

_"Bloody hell, and I thought she was bad when she was just pregnant…" _Wolf said. Alex heard the rustle of cloth in the background as Wolf either got out of bed, or changed into some decent clothes. Probably both.

Alex laughed. "Yea, well, just get down here. Your goddaughters are being born."

"Don't remind me. How's she doing?"

"Water broke about two and a half hours ago, dilated five centimeters. Unfortunately, holding. Twins are mostly positioned correctly, but shifting slightly. C-Section…well, something's off with Jack, so C-Section is dangerous – last resort dangerous."

"Damn," Wolf said.

"I'll see you when you get here. I have to call Jake. He's going to want all the updates on his nieces."

"See you."

Alex hung up without another word, and sighed, listening back to Jack's screaming, Ben frantically trying to calm her down, and the doctor calmly trying to ensure the safety and lives of everyone in there.

Resolutely, he called Jack's brother.

_"…hello?"_

"Hello, Jake – Alex, here. What you hear in the background-"

"-TELL ME TO PUSH _ONE_ MORE TIME AND I'LL _GIVE_ YOU SOMETHING TO _PUSH_-"

"-is the sound of your nieces being born."

_"What?!"_

Sighing, Alex launched right in all over again.

* * *

"Anything new?" Wolf asked as he plopped down in the chair beside Alex.

"Yea," Alex said, worriedly. "She's a centimeter behind where she should be in dilation, and the twins have shifted dramatically."

"That sounds bad."

"It is bad."

They lapsed into worried silence soon after.

"Well," Wolf said. "No more screaming…"

"That's worse, if you ask me," Alex said. Wolf nodded, understanding, and both Alex and Wolf waited for their honorary nieces, and goddaughters, respectively, to be born.

The door opened right beside Alex, and he shot up, waiting to bombard whatever doctor came out with questions.

Instead, it was Ben, and the doctor appeared to be shoving him out.

"But she's my wife! I can't leave her-"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Daniels, but we need the room as clear as possible, and your panicking is making the situation worse."

The door shut right after that, and the normally rather strong and flamboyant man deflated as he stared at the door.

Ben wasn't the type to be brought to this state so easily.

Wolf and Alex shared a glance, before Wolf hesitantly asked, "How is she?"

It took a few moments for Ben to turn around, but he blinked in surprise as the sight of Wolf.

"Hello, Jason," he mumbled. "She's…dilation's somewhat holding, but progressing, slightly. Twins are still moving in a bad direction. The contractions are having some weird effect on that uterine problem that's making a C-Section a bad choice, and it's moving the twins faster than normal."

It all said deadpan, but pure terror was running through Ben's eyes, as he sat down in the chair Alex had been in a few moments before.

Alex looked at him and said, "C'mon, mate, calm yourself down-"

He knew instantly that was the wrong thing to say as Ben glared at him. "That's my _wife_ in there, Alex. Giving birth to my _daughters_. There's just no fucking way I can calm down!"

MI6's star spy blinked and said, "Sorry. But you're doing no good, panicking like this-"

"Just because _you_ can watch your family die and be unaffected doesn't mean the rest of us can."

Alex's jaw set, and his sympathy and compassion for Ben evaporated as an age old fight came right back into the play, Wolf clearly wanting to back away as Ben and Alex leveled withering glares at each other.

"Leave my uncle the fuck out of this," Alex growled. "Your wife is in _there_, and you're out _here_. We're level 2 MI6 black ops agents – get a bloody grip on yourself. For Jack, if nothing else. Get a grip, and when you can get back inside, go, and help Jack through the birth of _your_ daughters."

Ben took a deep breath and looked down at his knees, as Alex sat down in the seat beside Ben, him and Wolf sandwiching the man.

"Jack's in trouble," was all Ben managed out. "I…if she…I'm…I don't know what I'll do."

Alex nodded. There had been a lot of complications with Jack being pregnant, which had only been made worse with the twins, and it seemed they were all panning out. But while there was a chance Jack might not make it, Alex sincerely doubted she wouldn't.

"I know, mate," Alex said. "She's the only family I have left, remember? Don't worry – Jack's a tough girl. She has to be – she's with us all the time. She'll make it through, and so will your daughters, and soon you'll go from panicking soon-to-be father to a panicking dad, and you'll be taking your whole family home to your appallingly baby-fied home. Okay?"

Ben took a deep breath and said, "As much as you keep saying you'd be fucked without us, I sincerely believe we'd be even worse off without you. I mean that, Alex."

Alex smiled, and behind Ben, Wolf rolled his eyes, but stayed quiet.

"Probably not healthy, but okay."

Smiling somewhat sadly as Ben relaxed into the chair, Ben said, "Jack'll disagree with you, you know. I think she sometimes swears by the power of third party anchoring in a relationship. Something to do with tribal set-ups and all that."

Alex laughed. "Yea, well, find someone with a longer life expectancy. If your relationship exploits me so much, you'll be in trouble, soon, when I'm dead."

"Give yourself some more credit, Cub," Wolf said.

Ben nodded in agreement. "Consider this another incentive to stay alive: what Jack'll do to you once she finds you on the other side if you die too soon."

Alex smiled. "Of course."

Wolf draped an arm around Ben's shoulders and asked bluntly, "So, have you gotten your sanity back, yet?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Alex said. "He can't have something back that he never had in the first place. He married Jack, remember?"

The even and conversational delivery had the other two men laughing, until Ben said, "You 'adopted' her."

"I never said I _was_ sane," Alex said. "I just said you weren't."

Ben smiled at that. He really needed it.

* * *

"…so can the twins be shifted manually?"

"That's what we're doing right now, Mr. Daniels. So far, it seems to be going well."

"That's wonderful. Please, can I go in to see my wife?"

"Yes."

Ben practically shoved the doctor on his way in, and Alex smiled. "How is she?"

"Dilation is still behind, but at least it's moving," the doctor said. "Twins are being shifted inside. She's making a comeback."

Looking through where Ben had run into the door, Alex murmured, "Told you she'd make it."

* * *

"Cub?"

Alex blinked, from where he'd fallen asleep against Wolf's shoulder.

"What?"

"For one, I need my shoulder back. Two, I'm getting coffee – there's a Starbucks in the cafeteria. Want anything?"

"My usual. Venti, though, not just tall."

Wolf nodded and got up, heading off, and Alex fixated worriedly on the wall opposite him, adorned with nothing but a sign pointing to where some more rooms right be.

He was about to become an uncle.

Yet again, he wondered if he'd been too emotional, too sentimental, in turning down the role of godfather to Jack's daughters. But…not yet. Just…not yet. That would be like admitting he had a family – which he didn't. Almost didn't.

As he mused, Wolf came back up the hall, carrying two very large cups of coffee, both adorned with the familiar green logo.

"Here," Wolf said, handing one to Alex, before checking his watch. "It's been fourteen fucking hours since she went into labor. How long does it take?"

"Jack had a lot of complications. And then there's the twin factor."

Wolf just sighed and nodded. "Kids. They're hell and back before they're even born."

* * *

"Ben?"

Alex looked up at Wolf's cry, and saw Ben standing there, grinning ear to ear.

"They're all okay," he said, half dazed. "All okay."

Now Alex was grinning, hugging Ben before dashing in.

Inside, Jack was sitting on the bed, looking tired, but elated, a bundle of blankets in each arm, a tuft of red hair poking out from each one.

"How're you doing?" Alex asked, as he sat on the end of Jack's bed.

"I'm a mother," was all she said as she looked at Alex, as if somewhat amazed by that piece of news, before looking down at her children.

Ben and Wolf walked in, Ben sitting on the bed on one side of Jack, taking one of the babies in his arm, Wolf standing on the other side.

"They've got blue eyes," Jack mumbled, informing them, as both babies' eyes were closed in sleep. "Just like Daddy's."

"But they've both got Mummy's hair."

Alex suddenly snorted, and Jack gave him an odd look. "What's so funny?"

"Sorry," Alex said. "Just…wondering…are you going to be 'Mommy' or 'Mummy'?"

Jack rolled her eyes while Wolf chuckled, before asking, "So – what're my goddaughters' names?"

Smiling, Jack lifted her elbows slightly to indicate the baby in her arms. "Taylor Anne Daniels."

"And I'm holding Jordan Marie Daniels," Ben said.

Wolf gave Jack an amused look. "Isn't Annemarie _your_ middle name?"

"It was my idea," Ben said.

Smiling bemusedly, Wolf said, "Looking forward to being a mum?"

"Sorta," Jack admitted. "It's up until seven I'm dreading."

"Seven?"

"I've got almost no practice with kids before seven. But, I've got plenty of kid-raising practice _after_ seven," she said, jerking her chin at Alex.

Alex just smiled. "Glad to see I'm of help."

"Want to hold her?" Jack offered, lifting up Taylor. "Christ, I'm tired."

Surprised, Alex nodded, scooching closer, and carefully taking the fragile little human being into his arms, Jack keeping a wary eye on Alex.

Adjusting himself, Alex smiled at the baby…then stared when her eyes opened.

There was no crying, just the baby looking at Alex, blinking.

"Hello, Taylor," Alex murmured. "I'm Uncle Alex."

* * *

**A/N: Hm** - **seem to have polarized, somewhat - angst is more towards the beginning, and fluff to the end. Hm...**

**Stick around! Part 3 down, at least two more parts to go.  
**


End file.
